Read Online Pawleys Island-lowcountry 5 by Dorothea Benton Frank - Free Book Online

Instead we’ve got this cockamamy cabinet of old zealot farts running the bloodletting, but we could talk about them all night, couldn’t we? And here’s our turn.”
    I turned on to Huey’s road, opposite the entrance to DeBordieu. If I hadn’t known where the plantation was, I would surely have missed it.
    “Anyway, screw politics. I think about this stuff, probably more than you would guess. Our government is such a disappointment. All of them…this entire out-of-control testosterone thing…Let me tell you about Huey’s house.”
    “Holy hell!”
    The big house had just come into view. And it was a spectacle to behold, with its spreading wings and grand front stairs fit for the arrival of Queen Elizabeth herself.
    “Yeah, isn’t that something? That was Miss Olivia’s family home, but they don’t live in it anymore. The taxes were ridiculous, so they made it into a museum. See? There’s the parking lot for the tour buses. Huey and Miss Olivia have houses down the road by the river.”
    We continued to drive, my car crunching along the gravel road, and had yet to catch sight of Huey’s or Miss Olivia’s.
    “Good grief! How many acres do they own?”
    “Honey, around here we just say enough . But I think it’s around fifteen thousand.”
    “Holy hell!”
    “You said it, sister.”
    We finally arrived at Huey’s house and spotted Rebecca’s car, pulling in alongside of it. We were close to the row of boxwoods that served as the wall between Huey, his mother and the rest of the world. That may sound like a bit of braggadocio, but it was true. Once you rounded the long span of English boxwood hedge, time stopped and you found yourself light-years away from the gnawing panics of twenty-first-century living. It was not surprising that Huey had created such an oasis. His eighteenth-century gentleman’s spirit could never survive without a sanctuary for quiet reflection.
    I opened the car door and the humidity slammed me so hard it nearly took my breath away.
    “Ugh,” I said.
    “You would think that by eight o’clock the heat would be broken,” Rebecca said.
    “We’ll be all right in a minute,” I said.
    As predicted, we rounded the hedgerow and the breeze from the Waccamaw washed us in cool waves of Japanese honeysuckle and sweet olive. It was going to be a beautiful night.
    I loved coming here and had always thought that Huey’s gardens were one of the best-kept secrets in the world. The terrace floor of ancient rose-colored handmade bricks was laid out in a basket-weave design, held together with a cracking mortar that allowed baby moss to creep through here and there. Around the edges at perfect intervals of twenty feet stood great lead urns planted with decorative grass climbing for heaven and asparagus ferns that dusted the earth. All of it waved in unison to the rhythm of the river’s breeze.
    Huey was standing by Miss Olivia, who was seated in one of eight wrought-iron chairs that surrounded the heavy glass-top dining table. The relentless sun had faded the magenta-striped cushions in the seats and backs of the chairs, but they were still cool and inviting. There was a centerpiece of pink hydrangea blossoms stuffed in a large cut-glass bowl. On either side of it stood oversized hurricanes, tall enough to ensure the glow of its columned candles.
    Off to the side, closer to the house, was another seating area with chairs and glass-topped end tables. Nearby stood the butler’s field table on which was placed a silver Revere bowl of cracked ice and silver tongs. Crystal tumblers and bottles of white wine in an oversized silver ice bucket waited on a round silver tray. There was bourbon in a decanter and Perrier wrapped in a linen napkin. Byron moved in the sidelines in his starched linen mandarin-collared jacket, coming forward to offer a cheese straw or a napkin or to refresh a drink.
    Whatever it was that Miss Olivia was saying, Huey’s face was filled with delight. Their affection for